Sports

Hochman: This one's for Broncos Country

Displaying unflagging support of their favorite NFL team, fans put waves in the Broncos logo before the Jan. 12 playoff game against the Chargers. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)

NEW YORK — The Broncos will win the Super Bowl, and John Elway, with a toothy smile as wide as Terrance Knighton, will proclaim from the postgame podium: "This one's for Pat!"

The phrase "This one's for" has become a Denver staple ever since team owner Pat Bowlen declared "This one's for John!" after the Broncos' first Super Bowl title. This one, yes, will be for Mr. B — the patriarch — and this one also will be for Peyton Manning and Champ Bailey and even Elway once again, the quarterback-turned-executive, the icon who somehow found a way to become even more iconic.

But win or lose, this one's for Denver. It's bonkers to think that there are high school freshmen who haven't been alive to see a Broncos Super Bowl championship. The last time the Broncos won the Super Bowl, Bailey was preparing for the NFL draft at the University of Georgia.

This one's for the families who pass down their love for the Broncos like an heirloom. For the fathers and sons and mothers and daughters who are connected by blood and genetics, sure, but really their bond is laced together like a football, a relationship strengthened by memories of Crushes and Drives and Helicopters.

This one's for the fans who scraped together money to fly to America's most expensive city and attend America's most expensive sporting event because financial sacrifices are worth being in the building to see the Broncos win their third Super Bowl title. Yes, they might be seated closer to the clouds than to Chris Clark, but attending the Super Bowl isn't as much about seeing it as feeling it, and there are few feelings better than sharing electric ecstasy when your team wins a championship.

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That being said, this one's for the fans at home, who will share this moment with family and friends, the people with whom they wanted to make memories. This is important stuff. This isn't going to the bar on a lazy October afternoon to watch Broncos-Jaguars. There are few moments in a fan's life that literally are unforgettable. Someday you'll be old and gray, riding in your grandson's hovercraft, regaling stories about being sardined on a couch, nervously guzzling cans of Coors while watching the Broncos win the Super Bowl on this antiquated HD television screen.

This one's for the freaky fanatics, the guys with the Broncos logo shaved into their heads, the girls with Broncos tattoos inked into their souls — people who alter their body to pronounce their love for the Broncos.

This one's also for the quiet fans, the nondescript natives who don't need to paint their bodies orange to prove that the Broncos are part of their DNA. They feel the bond, and that's good enough for them.

This one's for the online community of Orange Nation, the tweeters and bloggers and commenters who fuel fandom at their fingertips. They lose themselves in social media, bonding with passionate people just like them who, after a few back-and-forths, mean more to them than many of their Facebook "friends" whom they haven't talked to since high school. Strangers united by handles and hashtags.

This one's for the Denverites who don't understand a read option or a bubble screen, but are beaming because, beyond the X's and O's, the Broncos represent their city, their people, their community. That's Denver out there on the field. And we have skiing and snowboarding and microbrews and marijuana, but it's the Broncos, darn it, who unite Denver.

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